There are numerous applications in which highly loaded, or stressed parts of a machine, apparatus or the like must be protected against load-induced breakage or other kind of destruction or impairment. To do so, it is typically provided that the parts to be protected are interrupted and at the interruption are connected together transverse to the force direction of the power flux by so-called shear pins or bolts, which are sheared off when there is an overload, so that the power flux is interrupted.
To name some examples, a connecting rod located in a force transmitting apparatus would bend out of alignment under an overload if it were not secured against overload by suitable means. Similarly, the machine head that supports the working force in a press would tear off from the machine frame if overloaded. The bars securing a snowplow would bend and buckle or break if the snowplow were not connected to these bars with an intervening overload protector.
Overload protectors in the form of shear bolts have the disadvantage, however, that once they have sheared off, in performing their task as overload protectors, and have thereby become unusable, the bolts must be replaced, which often is very tedious and labor-intensive. The aforementioned known overload protectors accordingly have the disadvantage that they are themselves destroyed and therefore cannot be reused.